


Bloodstream

by danniellecj



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danniellecj/pseuds/danniellecj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe if he kissed them both enough, the bad things in his life would go away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodstream

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This was originally supposed to be a chapter from that story I should have been working on. But I scratched it and separated it because it didn't feel like it belonged in that line of thought. I started writing this one one night and I couldn't stop so here it is. Inspired by Ed Sheeran's "Bloodstream". Enjoy!

It was not the ticking of the clock that woke him nor was the sound of the rushing ambulance.

Even in the moments that his mind was hazy and his body dulled with pain as he wished for the end, it was always her name on his lips. He mutters it like a prayer, repeatedly moving along as the taste of blood flows on his tongue.

There’s a shout of an order coming from someone and a pull against gravity as his body shifts along the road. A blinding white forces his eyes to keep shut and a violent touch of pain stabs him along his side.

His name tears through the night and it coincides with the name he mutters through his mouth.

"FINNICK!"

He opens his eyes to a splash of yellow and soft sheets. A sharp intake of breath prompts him up in adrenaline expecting a knife, a threat, a danger he’s commonly accustomed to. He finds his hands gripping the sheets, and his senses alert to whatever trap he’s pulled in.

But the room remains quietly undisturbed. He looks to his bedside and finds a used brushed filled with dark tangles of hair. The other side of the bed has long since gone cold. He slowly lets go of his grip and cautiously sits up. The yellow curtains covering the window illuminates the daylight reflecting the room. 'This is home' it said.

He feels like a guest here.

He stands up and walks himself to the opened bathroom door, where the towels are arranged neatly and tiles remain dry.

By the counter sits the usual medications for pain, extra toothpaste, a small tube of lipstick and a comb. He starts to brush his teeth, the taste of sharp flavored toothpaste hitting his tongue as he washes it down. He walks out riddled with curiosity yet saddled with familiarity. He must live here, obviously.

A slightly opened cabinet sits by the side of the room next to the mirror where a neatly stacked of arranged make up decorates underneath it.

And when he looks at himself in his mirror, he finds himself unharmed by anything but a bad dream. Sea green eyes tired, ruffled bronze hair, gray shirt and pajama pants crumpled and a mouth frowning at his appearance. It is however, the faint glimmer of light that hits the band on his left finger that catches his attention; his frown disappears and he finds himself at loss.

Confused, he leaves the room only to end up at a hallway where the floor creaks softly and the walls stare at him numbly. His feet answers his questions and he suddenly finds himself walking downstairs, the halls seemingly longer than the usual halls in his old home.

He follows the sound of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” towards the dining area.

Many a times he had woken up to Annie making breakfast at the kitchen. She loved the morning air, and the warm sun and the flowers in the garden. He loves the way she would turn the radio on to some shitty pop station and sing the local top 40 at the top of her lungs. He loves the way she wore his shirts, the way she tied her hair into a messy ponytail and the way she cooked breakfast and her surprised yelps when he'd sneak up behind her while she'd make it, he also loved distracting her in the mornings, even if it meant burning the eggs.

That was the Annie he loved in the mornings. 

She doesn’t notice him enter as she pours the pancake syrup on top of the plate. She stands up to return the syrup at the shelf, the small sight of skin catches his attention as her gray tank top rides up a bit. She hums along, as she turns to get a pitcher of orange juice when she sees his startled look.

"Finnick!" surprise colored at her voice.

He thinks this is a bad dream. Any dream but this. There are no happy endings for him. Nothing but this. His heart aches badly and the last time he saw Annie, she was running away from him in apparent betrayal and hurt.

He doesn’t notice her walking towards him as she wraps her arms around him. The feel of her skin around him pours out the first string of emotion. He hugs her back as if he would never let her go. He finds himself trembling, one of his hands grasping her dark long hair, the other wrapped at her hips. He burrows his head on the crook of her neck finding the soft and warm touch he had missed too deeply and before words could explain, he cries.

"Finnick?" She asks in a worried tone. "Finnick, What’s wrong?"

His tongue finds the suppressed words he could never say before as she looks up at him, green eyes laced with worry.

"I love you," he starts, the words felt like dust parting away from his heart. "I love you so much," he says as he breathes, his forehead touching hers and his eyes closed as he lingers on the words he had always wanted to tell her.

"I love you too" she replies softly. Her left palm cupping the side of his cheek. He could feel the same metal band on one of her fingers and he feels a quiet burst of ecstasy filling his heart as a smile paints on her face.

"Finnick?" She asks, again.

"Hmmm?" His eyes never leaving hers.

"Are you alright?"

"I am now." He answers. She smiles at that, relief finally washing down.

A small sound of laughter fills the room and he looks at the side of the table and finds a baby, not more than a year old, happily reaching for them with his chubby hands.

Surprise colors him as Annie lets go from him and pulls out the small baby from his seat. The pacifier dropping from his mouth in excitement as his small hands finds his mother’s.

"I guess our early birthday surprise for you was foiled" she says in mock disappointment.

Surprise indeed. Finnick stares at the small baby toying at Annie’s necklace.

"Ronan, come greet dada a ‘happy birthday’" she says, motioning him to Finnick.

He looks just like him. Bright green eyes, a patch of growing dark hair and dimpled cheeks staring at him. He gives Finnick a toothless smile.

A small voice in his head tells him this is real. This is what he’s always wanted with Annie. Happiness does not lie. Please God, let this be real.

"Hey Ronan," he starts, his fingers finding his tiny right hands and the feel of his tiny fingers wrap around his is enough to convince him.

Annie leans in close to him, green eyes alight with joy as he leans down and catches her lips. For all the women in the world, nothing felt much right than her lips against his.

They both laugh when the small boy fidgets and he breaks the kiss to pepper him with kisses instead. A memory plays along his mind of Annie in the middle of the night saying, “Kisses makes everything bad go away”.

Maybe if he kissed them both enough, the bad things in his life would go away.

"Happy birthday Finnick," she says.

A beeping sound plays along the background and he could feel the house fading from his grasp, as Annie and Ronan walk away from him.

"Annie?" He asks, darkness descending upon him.

"We’re going to the beach today," she says, "Remember?"

It is the sound of the heart monitor that wakes him up and the numbing pain that makes him open his eyes to a blinding white. He tries to sit up but he finds the long tubes connected to his veins struggling to keep him down as he turns to a familiar face adjusting one of the tubes connected to him.

"And here we thought you’d slip on for a few weeks," greeted him with mild amusement.

"Jo…?" He starts, voice crackled and hoarse.

Johanna puts her hands in the pockets of her white coat as she sits herself at his bedside.

"I’ve adjusted your morphine dose. Thought to give you a bit of a break since you’ve put yourself into too much hell," she explains

"What the hell?" he starts in between pain.

She laughs at that, “I should be asking you that question. Imagine my surprise to see your body at the ER the other night.”

He doesn’t say anything. The last thing he remembers was the bottle of alcohol Haymitch had given him, ‘new invention’ he said. He was stupid enough to drink it on the way home, the sweet liquid pouring down his throat filling him with enough bitterness that by the time he made it on the exit, his senses was dulled and he felt himself slipping away.

"So," she starts seeing the night of the accident playing in his eyes, "care to explain what the fuck was going over your head that night?"

"Did Haymitch start blaming himself yet?" He asks, ignoring her question.

She pauses to look at him, “I didn’t know. He visited you the other day after Annie. He kept saying what a huge idiot you were,”

"Annie came?" He asks, ignoring Haymitch's comment as guilt takes over him.

The vibrating pager on her pocket catches her answer as she looks down on it. “She’s been visiting you mostly in the afternoon. Kept reading something about Cummings or some shit,”

"God," he says, his heart heavy, closing his eyes. He doesn’t deserve any of Annie’s kindness.

"I've been an asshole for far too long," he says as Johanna give him a glass of water.

"I dont have any doubts about that. You’ve always been one. That’s why we’re friends." She answers.

She helps herself up as Finnick drinks and straightens her coat, “I’ll tell Dr. Matthews you’re awake so he can take some of your tubes off.”

"Anybody else came to visit?" He asks.

She pauses as if struggling whether to tell a lie or not. He catches the slight of it in her brown eyes and he knows well enough to spot it, “Johanna?”

"Snow did." Her voice sounding clinical as she turns to the door of his room. "he made sure to call us to let him know when you’ll be awake"

"did you?" He asks before she leaves. She pauses a bit.

"not yet." She answers, her voice laced with coldness.

Anger flickers at his nerve at the sound of his name and worry. He had tried to find ways to quit his dangerous job. Somehow he always finds himself unable to due to the staggering amount of information he holds against them and how he knows that everyone affiliated to him could be put into danger with a wrong move.

His eyes catch the sight of a small brown book at the bedside as he reaches out to it.

Annie has always been fond of E.E. Cummings though sometimes the sight of her underneath him coming undone as he recites some of his poetry and his own writings amuses him greatly. And he loved those moments enough to to tease her about it.

But those moments have long since passed and he had left Annie for the purpose of her own safety.

The thought of her meeting with Snow makes his blood go cold and he erases that possibility in his mind. He had tried his best to make sure Snow knew nothing of her, even if it means letting her go.

He opens some of the pages of the book and find some of her handwritten notes in it. And in one page, dog-eared with the lines highlighted in blue read:

'love thou art frail

—walk the longness of autumn  
smile dustily to the people,  
for winter  
who crookedly care.’

He closes the book without word and places it back on the side and turns to his side and tries to pretend to sleep.

In his mind he plays the last remnants of his dream, and he imagines them all back into that house, spending the day together, like a family he never dreamed he would have and ignoring the voice nudging him, repeatedly saying, ‘Some things are best fit into dreams.’

**Author's Note:**

> The line from which Annie highlighted from is from EE Cumming's "Cruelly, Love".


End file.
